The Monday After: Pride {Hyacynth}

We leave church inspired and filled with Truth and encouragement on Sundays … and somewhere along the course of the week, pieces of the message tend to fade and we often lose that Sunday feeling.

The Monday After {the Sunday Sermon} is our attempt to carry the Sunday message into Monday mornings by walking together and sharing how what we’ve heard on Sunday morning is making a difference in our Mondays, our weeks, our lives. Each Monday, a voice from the pews will give personal perspective to the words we soaked in on Sunday.

The Monday After Sunday, June 2, 2013: Enemies of the Heart: Pride {Listen to the message HERE!}

By Hyacynth Worth

Yesterday as Pastor Bryan began his message about diagnosing and healing the pride issues in our lives, he shared how he and his wife were discussing the upcoming sermon beforehand and his wife, sweetly and innocently said, “Isn’t it awesome you get to talk about something you know!?”

Had my husband and I discussed this blog post before I wrote it, he likely could have exclaimed the same sentiments.

I, unfortunately, know a thing or, you know, two about pride — namely pride masked as achievement, perfectionism and self praise or criticism.

I’ve long compared myself to others wishing I could be better/do more, and I’ve long judged myself as better off than others because I’ve not screwed up as badly or at least I haven’t {fill in the blank}.

Maybe you know that inner dialogue? That kind of self talk that hinges your self worth on your own performance in good works or lack of performance in certain sins.

And maybe like me, you’ve never thought twice about making comparisons; like the pharisee in Luke 18, I thought it was normal to judge myself against other people who were seemingly successful or unsuccessful and allow those comparisons to dictate my own worth. How else could one gauge success?

The irony is thick, I’ve come to realize, when we judge ourselves against other people — other imperfect people when really we all fall short when compared with Christ.

Also? Comparing is actually counterproductive to the way God designed us to live with each other. We’re to be the Body of Christ — if we were all different parts trying to act as hands, the body wouldn’t work. And if we compare the foot to the hand, it’s no wonder the foot seems like it can’t do anything right.

We’re all different parts of the Body, and in order to be His body, we have to know and appreciate which part He’s designed us to be.

I first began to appreciate how He’s crafted me when I took year one of Vantage Point 3 here at Immanuel a few years ago and discovered my God-given strengths after taking the Clifton StrengthsFinders test.

I realized just how beautiful He’s crafted each of us when I learned that the likelihood of anyone having the same top five {out of 34 strengths} in the same order was one in tens of thousands.

How awesome is our God to make us all so uniquely and wonderfully and fearfully?

And how much more worth could we find in something beyond belonging to the God who so wonderfully and fearfully made us?

So, yes, I’ve known a thing or two {or 20} about pride now for all of my life, really. But during the past few years I’ve learned all I really need to know about it:

1. I have a pride issue.

2. And the only cure is more of Him and less of me.

Hyacynth Worth is grateful daughter to the Perfect Father, wife to John and mother to two little boys and three souls she will one day meet. In between mothering and coordinating social media for Immanuel, she writes about grace, motherhood and living a healthy lifestyle at Undercover Mother.